[balfirevic]

Another quick calculation, in addition to the one from tfussell:

Google tells me [0] that total fuel consumption by commercial airlines in 2019 was 95 billion gallons. One gallon of fuel has around 33 kWh of energy.

Power capacity needed to produce that amount of energy in a year is around 358 GW.

Total world electricity production in 2020 was around 3000 GW-year [1].

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=total+yearly+aircraft+fuel+u...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=total+world+electricity+prod...

[paul]

Comparing global fuel consumption with global electricity production is a good approach. It’s clearly substantial, but doable, especially since fuel production can utilize “unreliable” renewables (make gas when the sun shines).